Fotini Diamantidaki

This is a full issue of the Journal of Education, Innovation, and Communication (JEICOM) - Volume 5, Issue 2, December 2023- entitled 'International Perspectives on Education and Communication'. DOI: https://doi.org/10.34097/jeicom-5-2-December-23 . The four research papers of this issue discuss ways in which education professionals and beyond innovate and adapt to a ‘new normal’.

This is a full issue of the Journal of Education, Innovation, and Communication (JEICOM) entitled 'The evolving and interactive nature of Communication' -Vol. 4, Issue 1, June 2022- DOI: 10.34097/jeicom-4-1-june2022. The first paper, by Makri Elina and Veglis Andreas, entitled «Human Cognition and Data Journalism», is a cross-disciplinary research that draws the attention of data journalism stakeholders to the mental operations of a person who experiences storytelling with data. More particularly, it investigates the reasons that the audience acts upon emotional stories rather than data and statistics. Additionally, the research examines the role of the language use by the data journalist; and whether language can overshadow data and consequently influence the reader’s perception on the information from an article. «The Role of Psychological Approaches in Data Journalism Visualisations», by Kalliri Emilia and Veglis Andreas is the second article of this issue. Data visualisation, the method that allows communicating large amounts of data, improves viewer’s understanding of news and increase interaction. This study explores whether visual designers in data journalism assess psychological principles in data visualization. Data visualisations from the BBC and the Guardian presenting coronavirus’ information and the use of ‘decoding model’ initiated by Munzner (2014), helped the authors identify the visual attributes of data visualisations. The next paper, by Atencio Chris and Herbst Nathaniel, entitled « Addressing Common Obstacles to Effective Shared Leadership: A Five-Year Follow Up», aims to fill the gap of limitations, drawbacks, and difficulties associated with shared leadership. A five-year follow up investigation into seven American Christian churches and ministries, that have been previously interviewed, confirm that all five same obstacles (difficulty of the model, a potential lack of follow-through, a possible lack of efficiency, a general lack of acceptance of the model, and the danger of immature or usurping team members) were experienced over the past five years. Nevertheless, the research also proved that none of these obstacles had kept these organizations from continuing to effectively share leadership. Yingfa Song and Jiangxia Ji, author « Why people participate in collaborative governance through the government hotline: from the perspective of the theory of planned behavior». This study constructs a model of influencing factors for the public to use the government hotline to participate in collaborative governance, based on the theory of planned behavior. Hypothesis testing was conducted by structural equation model, and regression analysis was used to explore the moderating effect of each influencing factor on different governance behaviors. The results show that the attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, government trust and participation resources have a positive and significant impact on the public's behavioral intention to use the government hotline to participate in collaborative governance, and the behavioral intention further leads to the actual governance behavior.

The accelerated development of new technologies profoundly affects human society, offering many facilities of rapid communication but also generating challenges (Szabo, 2021).This phenomenon ‘has led to the rapid accrual of academic work mapping potential links between time spent on digital screens and well-being outcomes’ (Orben, 2020). Following close behind, there has been ‘a rise in systematic reviews and meta-analyses examining the impact of digital technology use’ (Orben, 2020). Our issue looks into media and technology trends in different contexts.

The paper looks at the study of literature in the foreign languages classroom and examines how the use of the internet and digital resources can facilitate this. Foreign language learners can learn a lot more than the instrumental functions of a target language by appreciating the literature. Examples from French and Mandarin Chinese literature will be used to illustrate the argument.

While there has been a rise in the demand of learning Mandarin in the United Kingdom in the last decade, the development of teaching Mandarin as a foreign language is still at its initial stage. In particular, research shows that there is inadequate continuous professional learning opportunities for in-service Mandarin teachers. Furthermore, as many of the Mandarin teachers are native-speakers without formal training prior to taking up their posts, they might not have the relevant Mandarin-specific pedagogical knowledge. This study aims to explore the impact of professional learning for Mandarin teachers using an intervention approach. Participants (N=50) will attend a whole day workshop on the teaching of Chinese characters. The workshop will be conducted in England and Scotland. Focusing on understanding teacher efficacy and possible changes of their pedagogical approaches, the data will be collected by administering surveys before and after the workshops and conducting semi-struc...

This paper comes at a time of curriculum and Initial Teacher Education (ITE) change in England. The need to hold on tightly to many first principles is vital and one of these is the role of the modern foreign languages mentor in schools, in the context of secondary ITE, the Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) more specifically. This paper aims to restate the definition of the subject mentor, focusing on the qualities, the complexity and evolution of the role. A theoretical framework has been developed based on the theory of mentoring and associated concepts of reflective practice and professional dialogical relationships. Theory and practice of mentoring are then supported with a small-scale research study based on open-ended questionnaires to subject mentors of PGCE Modern Foreign Languages (MFL). The paper also explores the type of collaboration that subject mentors would appreciate having with Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and observes whether the subject mentori...

Due to the growing status of Mandarin as a foreign language in schools, the number of Mandarin teachers has been on the rise worldwide in the last decade. However, the development of pedagogical approaches for teaching Mandarin in the UK context is still at its initial stage. Moreover, research shows that there are often inadequate career-long professional learning opportunities for in-service Mandarin teachers. Drawing on interviews and documentary data gathered during a one-day workshop on the teaching of Chinese characters (N=50), this paper reports on Mandarin teachers’ professional learning needs and their perceptions of teaching Chinese characters. The study argues for the importance of re-contextualising metacognition in developing language teachers’ knowledge and understanding about subject specific pedagogy. The findings also hope to contribute to the ongoing discussion on the theoretical and practical issues relating to the interconnectedness between Mandarin teachers’ sel...

Pedagogy holds its roots back in ancient times with a first definition involving the ‘child’ ‘παιδί’ pedand the teaching of the child ‘αγωγή’ -agogy. In fact, ‘αγωγή’ means the orthodox – ‘right way’ of teaching. This statement can have many interpretations overtime and according to context. It makes us think what is the ‘right education’ for a child, who determines what is right? The context the child lives in or the one who shares the knowledge?

Diamantidaki and Carruthers aim to provide an overview of the UCL, Institute of Education (IE) Confucius Institute (CI) for schools in promoting the teaching of Chinese in Primary and Secondary Schools in England. The authors analyse how the IOE CI developed and evolved so that in 2016 there are 200 spoke schools working with the 42 Confucius Classrooms, 3 of which are based in primary schools. Both authors underline the challenges of introducing Chinese into both sectors of schooling, including introducing a Programme of Study concerning Mandarin. The potential of comparing Mandarin with European languages seeks precision of meaning through complex grammar and vocabulary. Both authors focus on the challenges of teaching and learning, offering a new Programme of Study and suggesting new strategies in the teaching of characters and presenting culture. Both authors within the CI continue their work with informal feedback suggesting that this approach is working within a flexibility wh...

Education is a social process, ‘a process of living and not a preparation for future living’ (Dewey: 1916). It requires educators to interact with other people in real time with the hope to bring out their full potential. It is grounded in collaboration, mutual respect and inclusive practices. If education is a process of living and not a preparation for it, it should then reflect what happens in life and it should emerge and evolve from any circumstances. Including the most unprecedented ones. Innovation equally emerges from unpredictable circumstances – ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ (Plato in Ferrari: 2000). Educational innovations aim to improve teaching and learning, social innovations aim to improve the way we live. Lately, innovation is particularly associated alongside advances in technology; however, technological innovations need a strong theoretical foundation, a systematic purposeful approach and a grounded theory in pedagogy (Serdyukov, 2017). However, at the co...

While there has been a rise in the demand of learning Mandarin in the United Kingdom in the last decade, the development of teaching Mandarin as a foreign language is still at its initial stage. In particular, research shows that there is inadequate continuous professional learning opportunities for in-service Mandarin teachers. Furthermore, as many of the Mandarin teachers are native-speakers without formal training prior to taking up their posts, they might not have the relevant Mandarin-specific pedagogical knowledge. This study aims to explore the impact of professional learning for Mandarin teachers using an intervention approach. Participants (N=50) will attend a whole day workshop on the teaching of Chinese characters. The workshop will be conducted in England and Scotland. Focusing on understanding teacher efficacy and possible changes of their pedagogical approaches, the data will be collected by administering surveys before and after the workshops and conducting semi-struc...

In this issue of Blood , Lewandowski and colleagues show that elevated extracellular ROS in the bone marrow are not just one of the signs of the damage induced by high doses of irradiation, but actually lead to up-regulation of VCAM-1 on endothelial cells, therefore mediating transplanted HSC homing

The learnign of French as a foreign language has taken on a new dimension thanks to the new technologies of information and communication and with the emergence of the Internet. On the one hand, we consider the Internet as a source of infromation and documentation and on the other hand it is conceptualised as a source of interactivity and conviviality. The ideal situation would be to be able to combine these two aspects in order to improve learning. My project has a double approach: a. it offeres through a website, a wide access to French literary texts from the nineteenth and twentieth century b. it incorporates literary texts in the teaching of French as a foreign language through compehension activities.